A Quarter Mile An Hour Pace

I woke up at 5:30 this morning with Evan and Yong-Ju to do some bird watching. Saw a whole lot of exotic birds. The mist was heavy and ten minutes later it had retreated and I could see the whole jungle.

I saw an insane amount of tropical birds; Ora pendula, kiskadee, neotropical migrant warbler, hummingbirds, tropical kingbird, Scarlet rumped tanager (which I refuse to believe it’s name is anything but the red-assed tanager), blue grey tanager, social flycatcher, Nashville warbler, crested guan, and a black cheeked woodpecker. Dr. Shepherd is incredibly good at distinguishing birds from their calls.

We did a morning hike after breakfast on the Zamia trail. The portion of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest where we were staying used to be an old farm. However, it was terrible for farming because it was too wet. I have over four pages of notes on what I saw on the trail so I won’t bore you with the details. However, my favorite find of the day was the glass butterfly (pictured). They’re stunning little things.

It started raining again after we got back. Eric accidentally tossed his keys on the roof while tossing them up to Dan on the balcony. I spent two hours watching them try and get them down and get a backpack stuck on the roof in the process. After laughing at this for a long long time Adam went and produced a ladder from behind the building. We’re not allowed to throw keys anymore.

Around 4pm we took a shorter hike on the Laguna trail. Saw more amazing things. The jungle is just incredible. Dinner was phenomenal again. I can’t tell you enough how well I ate on this trip. Every day at 7am, 12pm, and 6pm I was fed a large hot meal with an abundance of fresh fruit. Dr. Shepherd put out a white sheet and a UV light after dinner to see what kind of bugs would be attracted to it. I watched tons of moths and beetles fly onto the sheet. Also, watched an ant swarm eating a moth. A beautiful scarab beetle landed on it so I captured it to take it home.


Quote
"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience."
-Eleanor Roosevelt